I recently read that the average American eats two and a half pounds of sugar a week. First, who are these average Americans? If they eat that much sugar, shouldn't they be easy to see? By eating natural sugar in things like apples - plus anything that means sugar because it ends in "ose" - plus man-made sugars like high fructose corn syrup, I supposedly see an average American every time I look in the mirror. How come if I'm constantly on a sugar high, I find this depressing?

Supposedly the closer food is to a natural state, the healthier it is. Call me pessimistic, but based on that I expect food manufacturers to lobby Congress to change a state's name to Natural. The closer food was to that state, the closer to Natural it would be.

I love breads, pastas and rice. Wasn't there a time when loading up on these was supposed to be good? Wasn't it what runners ate to build energy? Now these foods are called "refined". Now they're not good because they're man-made. Obviously, refined doesn't mean man made it fine twice.

Then there are the chemicals that are put in foods to increase shelf life. My son's cereal has an expiration date of 2010. I'd eat it too if I'd have a longer shelf life. Why not? By the time I've used brown sugar, raisins and milk to make a bowl of good-for-me oatmeal taste good, I've turned it into a breakfast sundae.

It's not easy to eat healthy. I tried to get my family to eat tofu, but they insisted I'd put meat tenderizer on an eraser. Serving fresh vegetables was more successful, but my younger son refused to eat eggplant. He won't eat eggplant because our dog won't eat it and dogs drink out of toilets.

No eggplant for him - no Coke for me. When I was a child I used Coke to take rust off my bike. It can't be good. For years I told the boys that chocolate wasn't good for them. Now they say chocolate is healthy because it strengthens bones. "Snickering" is healthy!